Did the PSU fry the HD
Hello,
I would appreciate your opinions or help. I don't know anyone who knows about PCs and I am stumped.
I had a system which was working well until I was switched towers and upgraded the PSU. I installed a new CompUSA 500w PSU. The system has a WD 8.4GB master and a IBM 20GB slave.
At first the master drive could not be found or when it was found, the drive name would appear with missing letters or crazy symbols and/or numbers. Using a rescue disk, in DOS, some of the file names were also appearing with corrupted names. The 20GB slave was from my brother's old PC. I had only used it for 2wks so I assumed that there had been a virus which had been transfered to the 8.4GB master. I finally got Windows to start and even then some of the file names appeared corrupted. I scanned the for disk problems using Norton's but nothing was found. I tried to get online but AOL wouldn't run so tried to reinstall AOL but the CDrom drive wouldn't read so I used and old CDrom drive. I reinstalled AOL and eventually I had to upgrade to a different version. When I got online, I used Trendmicro, BitDefender, and Panda's online scan. Trendmicro found 2 problems but would not proceed to step 3. Bitdefender would not download the latest profile but did not find anything. Panda didn't find anything. I restarted the PC hoping to that would get Trendmicro proceed to step 3 but the master could not be found again. Then the drive name was corrupted etc. I thought that perhaps it was an electric/cable problem. So I checked all of the connections, switched molex plugs, confirmed HD jumper settings and finally removed the 20GB slave, CDrom drive, and the floppy drive. Then I restarted using only the 8.4GB. There was a pop and the PSU went off. When I disconnected the 8.4GB the PSU worked. I tested the 8.4GB on 2 other PSUs and the PSU fan doesn't turn on when the 8.4GB is connected but does when other HDs are connected. I setup my system with the 500w PSU using only the 20GB and everything worked well then when I later restarted the system, the same problems began again with this HD. I pulled the PSU and tested it with a multimeter, off the board, and I got the following readings
Orange 4.38
Red 6.54
Yellow 15.17
Blue 14.66
White 6.30
Purple 6.77
Are those readings enough to burn out a HD?
If the 8.4GB is burned out, is there anything I can do to recover the most imortant files -- short of paying $500-$1000 or finding the identical HD and replacing the HD's logic board?
Regards
I would appreciate your opinions or help. I don't know anyone who knows about PCs and I am stumped.
I had a system which was working well until I was switched towers and upgraded the PSU. I installed a new CompUSA 500w PSU. The system has a WD 8.4GB master and a IBM 20GB slave.
At first the master drive could not be found or when it was found, the drive name would appear with missing letters or crazy symbols and/or numbers. Using a rescue disk, in DOS, some of the file names were also appearing with corrupted names. The 20GB slave was from my brother's old PC. I had only used it for 2wks so I assumed that there had been a virus which had been transfered to the 8.4GB master. I finally got Windows to start and even then some of the file names appeared corrupted. I scanned the for disk problems using Norton's but nothing was found. I tried to get online but AOL wouldn't run so tried to reinstall AOL but the CDrom drive wouldn't read so I used and old CDrom drive. I reinstalled AOL and eventually I had to upgrade to a different version. When I got online, I used Trendmicro, BitDefender, and Panda's online scan. Trendmicro found 2 problems but would not proceed to step 3. Bitdefender would not download the latest profile but did not find anything. Panda didn't find anything. I restarted the PC hoping to that would get Trendmicro proceed to step 3 but the master could not be found again. Then the drive name was corrupted etc. I thought that perhaps it was an electric/cable problem. So I checked all of the connections, switched molex plugs, confirmed HD jumper settings and finally removed the 20GB slave, CDrom drive, and the floppy drive. Then I restarted using only the 8.4GB. There was a pop and the PSU went off. When I disconnected the 8.4GB the PSU worked. I tested the 8.4GB on 2 other PSUs and the PSU fan doesn't turn on when the 8.4GB is connected but does when other HDs are connected. I setup my system with the 500w PSU using only the 20GB and everything worked well then when I later restarted the system, the same problems began again with this HD. I pulled the PSU and tested it with a multimeter, off the board, and I got the following readings
Orange 4.38
Red 6.54
Yellow 15.17
Blue 14.66
White 6.30
Purple 6.77
Are those readings enough to burn out a HD?
If the 8.4GB is burned out, is there anything I can do to recover the most imortant files -- short of paying $500-$1000 or finding the identical HD and replacing the HD's logic board?
Regards
0
Comments
Btw heres what those voltages should be.
Orange 3.3V
Red 5V
Yellow 12V
Blue 12V
White 3.3V (I think)
Purple 5V (I think)
Thank you.
Ironically I got the CompUSA PSU to replace a Sparkle PSU. :bawling: I thought that I had been overly cautious as I only use the PC for word processing and internet.
What you describe about the drive being misidentified with crazy letters and numbers usually is a PSU problem. See if they'll replace it for you.
You can probably find an identical drive on eBay for peanuts. Until they were donated to our SMx Project I had a couple of them just laying around here. If you pay more than $10-$15 you're paying too much.
The good news is that there's a chance that with a replacement PSU you'll find that the drive will work again. I would examine the logic board closely for scorch marks, though.
See if any of this helps. If you're still stuck and in need of data recovery we'll take it from there.
Thank you.
Oh okay. I'll keep searching Ebay for an old drive. I'll also PM Tex. Thanks for the suggestion
As far as the CompUSA PSUs, they have a reputation for being good. In fact, there are a couple of S-M forum members who used to swear by them. I'm surprised that yours is so bad, but I guess everyone can make a lemon once in a while.
oops...sorry.